T14 AMS Tips and Tricks

Thought I'd share some tricks I noticed with AMS on T14

Imperial Vizier: can cast ams before running into pheromones to be immune to it
Grand Empress: in p3 can cast when you get vision of demise to prevent being feared
Protectors: can cast when you get lightning prison to be immune to it prevent it from stunning you

other:
Icebound works to break out of ambertrap on wind lord, probably works for lightning prison as well on protectors

feel free to share other tips on bosses besides the typical 'cast before lots of damage'

I'm going to talk about our utility in general in this raid tier, from a dps perspective.

Mogu'shan vaults:

Stone guard is fairly straightforward with plenty of opportunities for ams soaking. You can also use ams to pop mines pretty much whenever you want. For this I take desecrated ground so I can break the root from a mine.

I haven't really found much to do at feng, but gorefiend's grasp and remorseless winter can both be useful for the shield phase. I prefer grasp because that's useful more often than an extra stun.

Glyph of dark succor is great for killing ghosts at garajal. We can also save the raid some damage by interrupting ghosts, and by aoe stunning them.

There are a lot of things we can do at spirit kings. Anti magic zone is great for the transition if you get zian second, and we can also give the raid some breathing room by gripping the undying shadows to walls before they die. For meng we can spec asphyxiate to use as a backup interrupt, and gorefiend's grasp is great for helping people get stacked for maddening shout. There are a lot of interesting things we can do with dark simulacrum during maddening shout. I won't talk about them here, but a pretty in depth list of them can be found in the blood thread on ej. Also, you can anti magic shell to dps safely during the dangerous part of the cowardice phase. There isn't too much we get to do with subetai out.

As for elegon, anti magic zone is amazing once again. If you're doing it on normal you can throw it on the healers and range for a total annihilation, and you can use it for one of the soak groups on heroic. Death siphon is incredible at elegon. The damage and healing buffs make it much better than it is anywhere else. We are decent during the draw power phase since we can just not bother with diseases on the charges as frost to just focus on one of them, or we can pestilence to them from the boss to help everyone out a little bit. If you can convince a warlock to give you a portal from your pillar back to the boss to cover our lack of a gap closer, great. In the final phase you can use nitro boosts to reset your stacks without losing much dps if you're an engineer.

Gorefiend's grasp is amazing at will of the emperor. Keep rages stacked for aoe if you're killing them or grip them into a ring of frost if you aren't. Anti magic shell can be nice to get some extra runic power from titan gas, but anti magic shell will remove the damage buff so use it wisely. In an emergency we can use anti magic zone to help someone without good cooldowns soak a titan spark.

Heart of Fear:

There's not much we can do at vizier. Gorefiend's grasp is pretty nice for stacking up mind controlled players for aoe.

Blade lord is another boss without much to say. Glyph of icebound fortitude is nice for reducing damage from unseen strikes. It's nice for any big bursts of damage.

Our utility at garalon is nothing to write home about. If you use howling blast on the body it will hit both of the front legs.

We don't bring much to the table at wind lord either, but being about to break ourselves out of traps with desecrated ground is pretty nice.

Amber shaper has plenty of opportunities for ams soaking, and if you put unholy frenzy on someone who is getting reshape life it will take 20% of the health they have after being transformed.

At empress remorseless winter can be pretty useful in the add phase, as can gorefiends grasp. As has already been mentioned we can ams visions of demise, and unholy is great for phase three in general.

Terrace of Endless Spring:

I've had to take some time off raiding lately so I will probably miss a lot of things here.

For protectors we don't need to move out for lightning prison because we can just ams it.

We used to be able to use unholy frenzy on tsulong, but from what I've heard that doesn't work any more.

Remorseless winter for the adds can be nice on lei shi.

We can anti magic shell breath of fear at sha so we are great at killing the adds at the sides.

Protectors - You can AMS the Prison.
Tsulong - You can AMS to immune nightmares if a ranged or healer drops it in melee.
Lei Shi - Use during Get Away for maximum RP gain
Sha of Fear - Immune Breath of Fear damage if used when the timer is around 2-3 seconds. You can also AMS as an emergency during Death Blossom but I'm fairly certain it won't absorb the entire duration.

Heart of Fear Heroic

Vizier - No real uses, I suggest using 6-7 seconds before the MCs go out so you aren't using it while MC'd
Blade Lord - Only real use is during P2 when you're dodging tornadoes. If you're topped off, use when DPSing boss for DPS gain
Garalon - I use AMS during stomps to mitigate damage I take while the raid is stunned.
Wind Lord - You can shell before the Amber Prison expires and you won't get trapped.
Ambershaper - Use to absorb pool damage, Living Amber explosion damage, Stomp damage, pretty much everything.
Empress - During our heroic attempts I've been shelling 1-2 seconds after the Corrupted Dissonance Field spawns to absorb some magic spew damage. It is also useful in P2 for Visions of Demise and Heart of Fear. I haven't tested it to see if it immunes the Heart of Fear, but the one time I got Visions during a wipe, it immuned the fear effect and damage to people around me.

Purgatory for all the rest. Even though most near death situations can be avoided, Purgatory gets you out of a pickle when AMZ isn't needed or useful. (Memories of framerate lag during Attenuation on pre-force and verve nerf Vizier)

Anyways, I'll probably make a thread when we kill Heroic Sha of Fear or maybe before that with other tips and tricks for boss fights this tier.

Wind Lord - You can shell before the Amber Prison expires and you won't get trapped.

Are you sure about this? I've hit AMS a few times after getting the debuff but before getting trapped, and I still get trapped. Also, would this still trap other people near you even if it doesnt trap yourself?

Are you sure about this? I've hit AMS a few times after getting the debuff but before getting trapped, and I still get trapped. Also, would this still trap other people near you even if it doesnt trap yourself?

Maybe you're right. I'll test it next week, or maybe on my 2nd DK if I get a run squeezed in.

MSV -
Stoneguards - too many things to mention... Cobalt mines are usually a good choice.
Feng - Use it on Arcane velocity, epicenter, whatever that shadow debuff is called, and the fire aoe... You may be able to use it on the wildfire spark and not drop a patch but I have yet to be able to confirm this.
Garajal - If you get vodoo dolled, ams will soak damage. Additionally you can use ams for the aoe damage from spiritual grasp.
Elegon - Plenty of AoE damage to soak. Use it during spark phases to get full rp as the first set of spark's is dying. If you're doing reg, you can soak total annihilation with ams.
Spirit kings - You can soak your raid mates magic damage, you can also soak the pools and the add's aoe.
Will - Combined with IBF you can generally soak a spark on heroic mode. Otherwise, your only other option is the titan gas.

HoF -
Zorlok - Not much here, most of the damage is physical.
Bladelord - Most of the damage is physical, but if you're daring you can run into a tornado after getting hit by a vanishing strike
Garalon - Use it every time your pheromone runner hits 13-15 stacks to get maximum RP gain.
Windlord - You can soak the amber pools in P1. Nothing to soak in p2.
Ambershaper - Soak amber pools!
Empress - If your raid members are slow getting into dissonance field you can soak some of the cry of terror in p1. Not much to soak in p2. P3 you can use ams with visions of demise and you will not get feared. That's probably your best option, but there's enough aoe damage going out in that phase you can probably use it anywhere and get a full RP bar.

Terrace -
Protectors - Lightning prisons, the dot, void zones, etc... too much to mention.
Tsulong - So much free RP in night phase.... Use AMS when you hit around 10-12 stacks and you'll get a full RP bar easily.
Lei Shi - Stand in front with your tank and you'll get a free RP bar from that. Otherwise use it on Get Away! for a free RP bar. Keep an eye on the timers so you don't waste your RP with a Hide!
Sha of Fear - Probably best used soaking the Terror Spawn's ranged attack.

As for elegon we are decent during the draw power phase since we can just not bother with diseases on the charges as frost to just focus on one of them, or we can pestilence to them from the boss to help everyone out a little bit

Sadly it seems like they made Elegon immune to pestilence >_>

---------- Post added 2012-11-24 at 12:56 PM ----------

Originally Posted by Dossou

Sha of Fear - Immune Breath of Fear damage if used when the timer is around 2-3 seconds. You can also AMS as an emergency during Death Blossom but I'm fairly certain it won't absorb the entire duration.

Isn't Death Blossom physical damage? You can use it against their Dread Spray though (reducing damage taken and preventing you from being feared)

He's definetely not immune as I spent most of Thursday Pestilencing off of him, and tbh at that point kinda being tempted to spec Rolling Blood purely for it as its just a handy boost for the entire raid.

Admittedly I'm not so sure AMS works when you get Voodoo Doll'd as pretty certain all of Gara'jal's attacks ignore absorption effects - so I just pop it on cooldown once the adds start spawning and same for AMZ to help mitigate their damage, especially near the end.